Chronic unpredicted mild stress (CUMS)-induced depression could alter the pharmacokinetics of many drugs in rats, however, the underlying mechanism is not clear. In this work we studied the pharmacokinetics of repaglinide, and explored the role of glucocorticoid and adrenergic signaling pathway in regulating drug metabolizing enzymes (DMEs) in GK rats and BRL 3A cells. The plasma cortisol and e...

In the Bayesian Reinforcement Learning (BRL) setting, agents try to maximise the collected rewards while interacting with their environment while using some prior knowledge that is accessed beforehand. Many BRL algorithms have already been proposed, but the benchmarks used to compare them are only relevant for specific cases. The paper addresses this problem, and provides a new BRL comparison m...

The liver has been shown to be a primary target organ for SiO2 nanoparticles in vivo, and may be highly susceptible to damage by these nanoparticles. However, until now, research focusing on the potential toxic effects of SiO2 nanoparticles on mitochondria-associated energy metabolism in hepatocytes has been lacking. In this work, SiO2 nanoparticles 20 nm in diameter were evaluated for their ab...

BACKGROUND Norepinephrine (NE) modulates the responsiveness of macrophages to proinflammatory stimuli through the activation of adrenergic receptors (ARs). Being part of the stress response, early increases of NE in sepsis sustain adverse systemic inflammatory responses. The intestine is an important source of NE release in the early stage of cecal ligation and puncture (CLP)-induced sepsis in ...

AIM/INTRODUCTION Both glucocorticoids and 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) have been shown to induce insulin resistance (IR) in hepatocytes and adipocytes. Here, we explore whether there is a correlation between them. MATERIALS AND METHODS Except for the control group, male rats were exposed to dexamethasone treated with or without para-chlorophenylalanine (pCPA), or carbidopa for 20 days. Except f...

AIM To assess the effect of 17β-estradiol pretreatment on the function and expression of α2- adrenergic receptors (ARs) subtypes in late pregnancy in rats. METHODS Sprague-Dawley rats (n=37) were treated with 17β-estradiol for 4 days starting from the 18th day of pregnancy. The myometrial expression of the α2-AR subtypes was determined by real time polymerase chain reaction and Western blot a...

We are currently developing an Automatic Target Recognition (ATR) algorithm to locate an object using multisensor data. The ATR algorithm will determine corresponding points between a range (LADAR) image, a color (CCD) image, a thermal (FLIR) image and a BRL/CAD model of the object being located. The success of this process depends in part on which features can be automatically extracted from t...

Objective(s): Oxidative stress has been established as a key cause of alcohol-induced hepatotoxicity. Licochalcone B, an extract of licorice root, has shown antioxidative properties. This study was to investigate the effects and mechanisms of licochalcone B in ethanol-induced hepatic injury in an in vitro study. Materials and Methods: An in vitro model of Ethanol-induced cytotoxicity in BRL cel...

This study investigates the effect of the aryloxypropanolamines 4-[3-[(1,1-dimethylethyl)amino]-2-hydroxypropoxy]-1,3-dihydro2H-benzimidazol-2-one (CGP 12177), bupranolol, and 3-(2ethylphenoxy)-1[(1S)-1,2,3,4-tetrahydronaphth-1-ylamino]-(2S)-2propanol oxalate (SR 59230A) [commonly used as 3and/or atypical -adrenergic receptors ( -AR) ligands] on the contractile function of rat intralobar pulmon...

This paper is concerned with H1 control of a networked control system (NCS). First, the NCS is modelled as a linear system with an interval time– varying delay. Second, a delay decomposition approach is developed to derive a less conservative bounded real lemma (BRL). Based on this BRL, delay-dependent conditions for the existence of a state feedback controller, which ensures internally asympto...